


Turntables

by sequence_fairy



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 19:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12824136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: The Doctor and Rose Tyler, listening to albums, lying on the floor.





	Turntables

**Author's Note:**

> This was an attempt to work through some Bowie-related feels on the day of his death.

She almost trips over him. He’s lying on his back, on the floor, arms crossed under his head and toes tapping along with whatever’s playing in the headphones covering his ears. His eyes are closed and there’s a soft smile on his face. She follows the headphone cord and spies where it’s plugged into the sound system in the music room.

The music room was a recent discovery for Rose, but she’s been availing herself of the Doctor’s extensive collection of almost every kind of music there was to be had in the universe since she found out about it. She’s watched him rummage through racks of records and bins of CDs and eight-track tapes when they’ve been Earthside, and watched him peruse the selections of all sorts of other planets too. She’s stood around in more music stores then she cares to count while the Doctor and various interesting looking people got into in depth discussions about albums and musicians and their influences.

He carries these prized possessions home and secrets them carefully away, and until one day last week when they’d landed not too far ahead of her own time in London on a Monday morning, she hadn’t known where. Last week, he’d gone quiet when he’d looked at the date when they’d landed and instead of bounding down the ramp to go outside, he’d flipped them back into the vortex and disappeared into the bowels of the ship.

Rose had followed him, only to find him sitting on the floor of this room, pulling albums off a shelf and picking them up, one at a time. He was turning them over in his hands, and she swore she heard a snif before he noticed she was there and turned around.

“Oh,” he’d said, and then had patted the floor beside him.Rose had sat down next to him, and he put an album into her hands. She had recognized this one. It was a drawing of a street at night, with a man and a guitar sitting on brick steps. She knows it’s London, but it’s a London from before she was born. 

“He’s gone now,” the Doctor had said. “Bowie - David Bowie - was  a musician - an  _artist_ ,” he corrected himself, “from the late 60s until he died in 2016. I’m sure you’ve heard some of his music, maybe seen one of the movies he was in?”

“Yeah,” Rose had answered, remembering dancing with Shareen to Bowie in her mum’s kitchen. “I know his music. Changes and Let’s Dance and the one about Major Tom.” The Doctor had smiled, and Rose had grinned back. “He’s the Goblin King too! I remember watching that movie when I was little.”

“He was a game-changer.” the Doctor had said.  “And then, just after his 69th birthday, he died. It was a surprise to most everyone. His family was able to keep it quiet that he’d been sick for a long time,” the Doctor stopped there, and looked down at the album in his hands, and then briefly, at the record player before returning to his study of the cover.

“Did you know him?” She’d asked, expecting him to say that he’d been the inspiration for Ziggy or maybe Space Oddity. The Doctor shook his head and Rose thought he looked a bit regretful.

“Did you want to listen or -” Rose had paused, she hadn’t been sure whether listening to the album would help or hurt. The Doctor had looked up from the album in his hands, and pulled the record out of it’s sleeve. Rose had watched interestedly as he placed it carefully on the turntable and set the needle. Her mum had had a record player when she’d been quite young, but they’d never used it.

Rose had begun to get up off the floor to sit on the couch across the room, but the Doctor had taken her hand and tugged her down to lie on her back on the floor. “Just close your eyes and listen,” the Doctor had said. They had lain on the floor and listened to the whole album from cover to cover, the Doctor’s hand in hers.

She isn’t sure what he is listening to today, but the soft smile means it’s probably one of his favourites. She sets the CD she’d come to bring back on the shelf and kneels down beside his head to lift the headphones off his ears. The Doctor’s eyes open slowly, and he frowns. Rose giggles, and the Doctor sits up to pause the song.

“What’re you listening to today?” Rose asks, and the Doctor reaches for the headphones. Rose dangles them just out of his reach. “Can I join you?”

The Doctor tugs the headphone plug out of it’s jack and skips back through the tracks to the beginning of the CD. He likes to listen to things in order she’s noticed, doesn’t like to skip through tracks to find one that he likes, or listen to things on shuffle. He’s also partial to concept albums and a strange mix of glam rock and early punk, with quite a lot of everything else thrown in. Her tastes are not as eclectic as his, but she’s making headway through the shelf of albums he’d said she  _had_  to listen to.

She’s found a couple she really enjoys, and that’s made her go and find the rest of their music and also made her go in search of stuff like what she’s previously enjoyed. The Doctor is always happy to offer a suggestion of something else she might like and also to help her find it. His system of organization is indecipherable to her, but he can find the album he’s after in moments.

“Are you ready Rose? This is a little different than the last time. I put one of their other albums on your shelf, but I don’t think you’ve gotten to it yet.” The Doctor motions for her to join him on the floor, and this time, he dims the lights in the room as well. Rose snuggles closer to him, lying on her back. He pushes play.

The sound of a heartbeat fills the room.


End file.
